Google Posts to help with content cut-through

The most shared content marketing-related stories this week include two important articles on the subject of distribution from Buffer and Searchengineland.

Google launches Posts

Social sharing site Buffer has put out a post about Google and a new way to push content into search results. Buffer’s own version received around 650 shares, despite being run elsewhere.

Dubbed simply ‘Posts’, the service is being trialed by US presidential candidates and selected small businesses. Essentially, it places a panel above the official tweets section in the search results where candidates can post their own content. Text, video and images can all be uploaded to the space.

Google Posts

The ‘podium’ appears in Google search results and can be shared (see main image)

Google describes Posts as an “experimental new podium”. Effectively, it allows users to update what appears next to search results in real time. Sadly, it only appears to be available in the US.

Yes, you can do something similar using Google Plus, but this enables far more information to be added. It will be extremely interesting to see how this works when it is rolled out to companies.

Peak content for brands

At FirstWord we have long said that distribution is going to be as important as the production of quality content. This article in Searchenginewatch – which received 450 shares – highlights interactions with content and would seem to concur.

A recent study from marketing software provider Trackmaven looked at content marketing across 23,000 brands in 2015. It included 50 million items of content and distribution channels including Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

Interestingly, content production is on the rise, with the average company producing around 2,000 pieces a year. That’s a rise of 35 per cent compared to 2014.

On the face of it this is a success story. The study found there were around 76 billion interactions – a huge number by any standards. However, actual engagement fell by 17 per cent when stacked against the amount of content being produced.

Of course, this is a very broad piece of research cutting across many sectors and domains. Content for a cosmetics brand, for instance, is going to face a different set of challenges to a blog put out for the banking services sector. Yet it highlights how distribution will – and is – becoming key.

Google Posts to help with content cut-through is part of Content24, the online magazine for London content marketing agency FirstWord.